First let me say please pardon my excitement - luck is not something that comes my way very often. Secondly I can't take all of the credit for this as someone else gave me a similar idea.

As many of you know getting the black plastic flange off of the top of fuel pump can be a real hassle to say the least and unless you have the Saab tool you have to fiddle around with misc parts that you have laying around the house and even then it may not come out in one piece so that it can be reused.

This is a Schedule 40 PVC pipe adapter. I paid $12 for it at my local hardware store but you should easily be able to get it for less than $10.

You can see the little vertical bump-outs around the outside of this piece. These fit "PERFECTLY" inside the flange. I drilled two holes through it and used a metal bar (from my chain saw chain breaker) and slid it through. The flange came right off in about 2 seconds. What I hoped to do was use a big oil filter wrench, one with the adjustable strap, but the one that I had did not make it all the way around. I tried to use just my hands by grabbing the pipe adapter but it was pointless. So I had to drill the holes and use the bar.

My original idea was to cut little vertical notches all the way around this piece so that the notches on the pipe adapter would catch the notches on the flange (maybe not all of the notches but at least 33% of them at one time) but thanks to the little nubs on this piece I did not have to do that.

I also went to my local Home Depot later that day and the model they have does not have these large nubs but had many more smaller ones all the way around. I think that one would work as well. This piece is called a 4" clean-out with plug (you take off the plug.) Made by Genova part #71639.

After all, dealerships like to charge $10 for each fuel filter washer for a total of $40 when every other site under the sun charges $6 for the set. I still can't believe that rip-off. So they can certainly afford a couple of Saab genuine tools.

Actually, I don't know how dealerships work, if the techs have to buy all of their own tools or just the basic ones.